Monday, March 5, 2012

Dearest in Doghouse & other tales of woe

The singing group from hell. Twice a week we transformed Mr Frace's choir room into a kind of chamber of musical horrors. Randy Mitchell ~ baritone. Doug Porter ~ monotone. Pail Pfeiffer ~ no tone at all. And of course ~ me. ~The Wonder Years

You ever have weeks like that? They suck, don't they.

It began with the car. With 3 other people all vying to drive the car I am rarely behind the wheel these days though strange clanking noises simply worry me rather than enlightening me. Anyway I heard no strange rattles & I wasn't driving so could not be blamed for the car's sudden cessation of forward momentum. I was, however, running for a boat when this happened & neither of the men in my life could get the car going again so Star missed rehearsal while I tried to hunt up a working mechanic on the island. Mechanics we have, just none of them likes to actually work. *sigh* Eventually one arrived & pronounced the alternator belt had gone. This strange piece of equipment, which I had never heard of before, is apparently responsible for the car battery charging. Without it the battery flattens faster than you can sneeze. The car was, however, drivable ~ so long as every time we took it for a spin we then removed the battery & put it on the charger. For days our life revolved around the car battery because the mechanic was loath to work in the dark or the rain or on weekends or....! So absolutely fascinating. Not.

There are worse things so we simply shrugged & got on with it. The next thing was Star arrived at my bedside in the middle of the night to shake me awake. This could in no way be construed as good news! I don't know what to do, she whispered. I padded after her sleepily to find the hot water system had sprung a leak & was showering the ceiling with boiling off~peak water & it was streaming down into my pantry! In the ensuring chaos everyone arrived in various states of undress to contribute to the mayhem & Dearest, attempting to turn off the water turned off the electricity. This apparently caused every computer in the house to crash!!!! In the absence of Liddy the title of *Computer Technician* falls to me so I spent the next morning on the phone with our provider retrieving passwords & reconfiguring 4 computers! Our present provider at least provides technicians who speak understandable English!

Meanwhile Ebay has changed it's policies so the money to pay for all this mayhem is tied up in their system! We are being rained on by the bucket load, the temperature has suddenly realised we are in Autumn & the cats are in serious meltdown. Kirby thought snuggling in with me last night was an excuse to chat sociably whenever a subject came to mind & I was woken by very enthusiastic kitty~kisses this morning! The next full moon will probably see me baying the moon & howling like a dervish through the mangroves.

Notwithstanding, the band plays on ~ or in our case the choirs. For those in Brisbane: the Queensland Festival Chorus is performing at St Stephens on Saturday March 31st from 8pm to 9.30 pm. I can guarantee the music. While not exactly a new choir it was previously drawn from QPAC, AVAE, & Exaudi. Now it is a choir in its own right. This is this year's opening performance.

Oooh, I know those weeks! I thought I was in for a day of similar ilk this morning, when I took the compost caddy to empty into the wormery and found that some thoughtful soul had deposited, right at the bottom of the caddy so it got well stuck to the ridges as sides, wait for it - CAT SICK!!!